The weekend has come and gone quickly once again. When one of the weekend days always involves being at work the weekend will go fast. Oh well. I was happy that we managed to get some DDP Yoga in on both nights. Sunday I was at work all day. It went pretty smooth and I met some first time visitors who were awesome.

Saturday was packed though. It was time for our yearly trip to Put In Bay. We started off with breakfast at Luna Bakery Café. This is where every roadie big or small starts. If you’re in Cleveland (and especially Cleveland Hts) get there. They are singlehandedly to blame for my recent obsession with making homemade granola. Then off to PIB and coming up with a name for it. Last year it was The Three Shillelaghs Naughty Nautical Adventures.

This year it was The Three Shillelaghs Naughty Nautical Adventures: The Second one. (Sharknado 2 reference bitches)

Amazingly and unplanned we ended up going on Commodore Perry’s birthday. OHP as we Shillelaghs (Kat, Linzi) call him. He is an honorary member of the Shillelaghs (along with NPH and Rivers Cuomo). We made it over to the island and stopped to get our golf cart.

(How else would we tool around the island?)

We were assigned Darth Vader. Everything was coming up Shillelaghs!

It was the SLOWEST cart ever….

There were musket demonstrations.
There was carronade firing demonstration:

It was awesome and loud. The wifebot managed to (mostly) get a video of it while she plugged her ears. Check that out here.

As if all that wasn’t cool enough: OHP was in the house.

OHP! Everything was definitely coming up Shillelaghs.

This guy:

There was an actual person there playing the role of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. He was a Professor who researched/created a one man show. He was pretty awesome. I regret that we didn’t manage to get a picture with him.

How does that happen?

We headed up Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial. It sure is pretty up there. From there we can see all the islands the Shillelaghs own. I think this year we made it a goal to hang out on Starve (island) at some point.

Nothing could go wrong with that idea. Here is a photo of me trying out my poet’s gaze on the monument (Walden filter):

Looking pretty fit, no? And check out that rad beard.

Of course we had to head to Key West and get some fruity girly drinks. I had something called a bushwacker

(bow chikka bow wow)

Then a not so proud moment happened. As we walked to The Round House bar a woman face planted right in front of me. Now before I could even think to help her I swerved right around her and kept on going. What a gentlemen. #JimiFail

(Yeah I used a hashtag.)

We ended up going to the Beer Barrel Saloon. Because if the shillelaghs are going to go to a bar it better be the longest bar. Here we (wifebot and I) had an Electric Lemonade Bucket. It looked like this:

It was like blueberry vodka, blue Curaçao, lemonade, and something else. It was terrible.

On January 26th I decided to start taking being healthier seriously. It started with getting our pebbles from the clinic to track our steps/exercise. That’s why I know the date at least. I had been doing DDP YOGA off and on for years. Never too serious about it and would continually let things get in the way or derail me.

I asked for the DDP YOGA pack for Christmas and thanks to my Father in Law and Mother in Law I received it.

(I’m much too cheap to buy it myself)
(And lazy)

So January 26th I started my road to better health. I (we actually) have been eating better. It’s been hard—I love all things cookies—and could be better. I’m working on that. I’m proud at how we’ve cut out all fast food. Working till 9:30 twice a week made it easy to be lazy and just grab Wendy’s. We don’t do that anymore.

I do the DDP YOGA every day now. I’m down 20 pounds since I’ve started. I can touch my toes for the first time since probably middle school and I feel good. I can feel/see muscles I’m not sure I knew existed. Basically this is me now:

Okay so I’m not Ravishing Rick Rude….yet…

AnyPipeDream the point is I’ve been successful thus far but have a long way to go. I mentioned on twitter (so it makes it legal right?) that I would donate a dollar for every pound lost at the end of the year to the Cleveland Food Bank. An awesome guy said he would match so now I have triple motivation to lose.

I’ll need it.

Let’s get to the funny shall we? For that we go back to the muscles. There is a noticeable difference—only because I was a flabby girly man before. Recently this happened:

Scene: Morning. Our bedroom. The wifebot getting ready in front of the mirror. Me on the bed behind her.

The alarm goes off (generally) at 6:30 in the morning. It sounds like the warning alarm on army bases or spaceships in movies.

I tell the wife it’s 6:30 and it’s time to get up. Depending on the day she’ll either get up or roll over. This is when I let her sleep for another 7 minutes and the alarm blares again. I once again tell her it’s time to get up.

Now this time she actually gets up and either says she hates the world or me. Sometimes both of these things happened.

I stay in bed as gets ready. Sometimes I manage to stay awake until she leaves. On these days she gives me a kiss and we say our goodbyes. Other days I fall asleep and she probably hates me.

When DSN (Digital Sports Network—shows on the internet) was actually broadcasting I’d wake up at 9 am. On these days I’d listen to the show and troll (in the nicest and most awesomest of ways) the chat room. It was a fun creative process that I won’t explain here because nobody ever seemed to get my explanation.

It sort of results in the “oh haha” type answer.

Now that DSN is on hold I wake up between 9:15-9:30.
(Go on hate me if you want.)

It usually involves me waking up with my ass straight up in the air and my face smushed against the pillow. There are almost always big red sleep marks on my face. If you’re thinking of a “gay sex dream” joke save em the wifey has plowed that field already.

WAIT what?

I meant the jokes not actually you know her rogering me in the bum.
Uhm moving on…

So I wake up and of course before anything put water on to boil.

Gots to get my coffee on.

Then I sit down and check my email. Now this is a process sort of done with one eye shut. I open it hoping to not see some form rejection letters. These days they are piling up from publications and possible employers.
It’s at this point (or possibly earlier) that Carissa has hit me up on gchat with WAKE UP or some other witty way of saying that.

(ClevelandPoet@gmail.com if you too wish to tell me to wake up or you know chat.)

I try to scribble some notes or decide what will be worked on (writing wise) that day. When the coffee is ready I try and sit down and tackle my google reader. Some of you are probably on it and I will tell you know when I click it and there are already like 15 of you with posts I curse you. These days I can barely do 2 in a row and you all make me look bad.

Part of the problem is mine are so story based on what is happening and what I’ve done. Since losing my job those stories have tapered off because honestly I don’t do anything now.

AnyFeelingSorryForMyself after reading and sipping on my coffee the job search usually begins. This is where the day usually goes to shit. I had been trying to tackle some writing first. I learned early on the job search/application process really drains me. It ruins the writing on most days. I’d do a couple hours of writing and then the job search.

As it dragged on and I freaked out more I switched it around. It really has destroyed any thorough writing. I was worried though—still am. So I search first and for longer than I actually write during the day sometimes.

This pains me but yet it happens continually.

Did I mention since the chaos of protest began in the Middle East I do all this while watching/listening to Aljazeera English?

Well I do. I’m enthralled by it. I can’t stop. It inspires me and has led to more writing than I’ve been use to as of late. Also it’s led to some fucked up violent dreams. I mean like hours and hours of the coverage would be playing on my computer as I went about my day.

Around 2pm I’d remember that I hadn’t eaten all day and scrounge up some food.

I suffer through these bad movies and take detailed notes. These notes have a very detailed key to make sense of them. If you were to look at the notebook it’d be gibberish.

(What else is new?)

Sometimes after some more writing I take a nap. I did this a couple time while listening to Aljazeera English and that was bad idea. We can substitute a nap with going for a walk. This was always a highlight—until winter really hit. I still try to go for at least a short walk during the day.

Then yoga.
Sometimes naked.
The wife likes that for some reason.

She’s never here for it is probably why. At 5 the day swings into more of a sports watching mode with some work on writing thrown in. There was a point or at least a joke I wanted to have thrown in here at the end. The only problem is it has slipped my mind

Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!

Seeing that today is April fool’s Day I’m going to go with a jokier one. It really isn’t all that gross but I suppose that depends on your point of view. The wife thinks that it is just the epitome of awesome/funny.

Onward Ho.

(I’m not calling any of you hoes.)

(Except for you over there.)

(Yeah you know who you are.)

Anytmi, as many of you know (I use that a lot) I started doing Yoga. I’m doing it every single day and rather enjoying it. It’s not the traditional Yoga per se (I just like saying per se.) It’s Yoga for Regular guys by Diamond Dallas Page. I feel like I’ve said this 40 times. So it has a lot of the same moves (some with variations) but given “manlier” names I guess.

Sometime last week whilst learning the moves I wanted to make sure I was doing the poses right and get them down in the right order in my head. I asked the wifey to watch/tell me which ones were coming up. Only problem was I believe we were about to go somewhere. This meant I was wearing jeans. I started to do the moves and well it wasn’t really working. The wife mentioned it was probably the jeans so I of course just ripped them right off.

There I was naked from the waist down on my back with my knees up like I was about to do a sit-up (pinfall position.) My pants are across the room and I keep going pantless. I should paint a somewhat picture of the positioning. I was in the living room on the rug pointed (on my back) toward the big comfy chair she was sitting on. This I assure you truly is not a pretty sight at all, but I was intent on getting them down pat. Of course the wifey violated my exposed bottom and man parts with her perverted eyes and then giggling.
First up were ones such as: knee twists, deeper knee twists and cross legged stretch.

Then there was Bridge Position which garnered giggles:

But what sent her lustful gaze and giggling into hyper drive was Dead Bug:

and human ball:

Now hardly a day goes by where she doesn’t ask if I did it pantless or sometimes she’ll just blurt out “pantless yoga” and giggle.

And since I know you all are wondering, no I don’t do it without pants.
Also now you all know I don’t often wear underwear of any kind. You’re welcome.